We miss you Aunt Rachel!!

Tonight during dinner, Ella started saying "Rachel?? Rachel??" She misses her Aunt Rachel and so do we!! I tried to get a good video of her asking for Rachel but by the time I got my camera out and recording, she was on the tail end of it, of course! We miss you Rach! See ya soon!!

I just uploaded about 200 pics from my camera onto my computer, yikes! We've just been having a crazy couple of weeks at our house. We've got about another month before all the craziness calms down! One sister is getting married, another sister is graduating from college and moving, my Mom is moving from about an hour away to about 10 minutes away and we have some family from overseas coming to stay with us! It will be a fun month but I'm also looking forward to some calm :) Rusty and I really-like REALLY-want to go on vacation after all this but we'll see what happens. We'd really like to go to Disney. I know Ella's too young to even remember it but we have some Disney Dollars to spend and it just seems like a good set up with staying at the Park and being able to just go back to our hotel for Ella's nap without too much hassle.

Last weekend was the big spring family get together on Rusty's side of the family. Since everyone is so spread out and busy, we try to bascially do a get together 4 times a year and celebrate all the bdays that hit around that time. We were blessed with a wonderful sunny day! Here's Ella with her maw-maw, grandpa and cousin Mariah.

This next pic is by request, so here you go Nancy! :) Ella wore this outfit to church last week and got quite a few compliments on her diva shoes, ha! One of the many reasons I love having a girl-you should see this girl's shoe drawer!!

Ella has been doing really well with eating lately. She's great about trying new things and really likes most things. I even made tuna patties for dinner the other night and she gobbled them right up, I was surprised! I realized I'd gotten in the bad habit of still feeding her and not letting her really practice feeding herself with utensils. So...here she is after feeding herself spaghetti.

This past weekend I had a few luxury hours to myself. The first hour was spent at the BMV replacing my lost drivers license. SIGH. But the next hour I hit the first garage sales of the season!! I had been itching to go and Saturday was the perfect day. There were several neighborhood sales that I hit up. Sadly, it seems everyone had the garage sale itch-it was super packed everywhere. Not sure if all the good stuff was bought up on Friday or what, I was pretty disappointed at what people were trying to sell. Used coloring books? Lingerie (yup-really)? Yucky old pots & pans? Clothing with stains and holes? So, I ended up spending $3. I got Ella a cute little dr. kit, a t-shirt and a sun hat. Funny how the focus of my shopping has totally changed! Here she is with the stethoscope of her dr. kit. I was CRACKING UP when I turned the corner and saw her like this!!

And.....last but not least.....we got a new car!! Yippeee! We've been praying about it for about a month now. We had a 2001 Chevy Malibu that I was driving. It was starting to get some miles on it but it was paid for and we've not had any problems with it in the 7 years that we've had it. We also had a 2001 Nissan Pathfinder that Rusty drove. It had quite a few miles on it (like 132K!) and was starting to have problems. And we still owed money on it. We took it in for a maintenance check and found out it needed some work done. So...we just prayed and decided to go car shopping on Saturday. And well...we found a car! It's a 2008 Saturn Vue and it's beautiful and I love it! The dearlership was willing to take a trade on the Pathfinder and gave us definitely more than it was worth. All the stars alligned and we decided to go for it! Rusty is making a HUGE sacrifice for me on this! He's going to be driving my Malibu from now on so that I can drive the new car. I honestly feel a little guilty about this and was really sad for him last night. He really loved that Pathfinder. It was a guys car. The malibu...well, not the most manly car. But he keeps insisting that he's totally fine with it, what a great husband!! This new car will be such a blessing for me-so much roomier for getting Ella in and out, buying groceries, getting the stroller in and out, etc. Yay!

Plan B, Easter and I love you!!

Can you tell from the title that this is going to be a random, catch-up post? Ha! Last week was a fun week for us. The weather was super nice and Ella has been in a great mood! I have to chalk it up to her ears continue to improve. It makes me mad that we weren't able to help her earlier. It was a pretty miserable 4 months or so for all of us-her, dealing with constant pain and irritation and us, dealing with a generally unhappy girl for a lot of the time! I'm hoping things will keep going up from here!

Friday, my sisters Sarah and Rachel were both off work and home. Since the weather was supposed to be great, we decided to take Ella to the zoo! I guess everyone had the same idea. We figured out pretty quickly that something was going on. Cars were lined up really far back. I decided to zoom past everyone, hoping maybe there was just an accident or that everyone was actually turning before the zoo. Nope! Everyone was in line for the zoo! But when we actually got to the zoo entrance, it was all coned off! I'm really glad we didn't wait in that line for an hour only to find out we couldn't get in! I later found out that we had to park somewhere else and shuttle over. We came up with a Plan B pretty quickly. I'd packed a cooler with sandwiches so we just decided to head over to the Art Museum and see if we could just eat lunch on the grounds there and let Ella play around in the grassy areas. Thankfully, the museum was pretty empty and we were able to have a great time there! Ella loved eating outside and then getting to play.

We started off our Easter festivities by dying...Ella's mouth. I had the Easter Egg painting kit in a cabinet and well, Ella found it...

...you can't tell very well from this picture but her mouth was VERY green, as were her hands, legs and hair! Augh! My first reaction was to find the box to make sure it was nontoxix! It was :) So then I took a picture. And then I cleaned her up. So, that is about as far as we got this year with painting anything. We'll try again next year!

Easter morning was pretty hectic at our house since I had to leave earlier than everyone else for worship practice. As I was leaving the house, Ella was in her highchair eating breakfast. I was saying goodbye and was turning to leave when Ella yelled out "I love you!"-for the very first time!! I've been trying to get her to say that for months it seems but she just clams up and will never say it back to me! So, I was a very happy mama :) Especially since I didn't even say it first, she just said it out of the blue!

And, of course, Easter egg hunting pics! We weren't sure how she would do with this but she did great! She really understood it-we were surprised. Rusty hid 11 eggs and she'd gotten them all in just a few minutes. So we just kept re-hiding them, in the same places even, and she thought it was so fun!

18 months!

Today my sweet little girl is 1 1/2. This picture totally describes her personality. Fun, silly and full of life!! She is such a joy to me and I can't belive how much she is changing! She makes me laugh constantly and I can say that I really enjoy her company! Every day I feel like she can communicate with me more and more and that is so nice. I know I will probably say this at every stage-but this stage is my favorite so far! There are definitely days when I'll be looking at baby pictures of her and get sad that she's not a baby anymore, but this stage is just so much fun. Here's some things about Ella at 18 months.

*She's a pretty good eater. She'll try anything once. Now that she's completely off dairy, I'm having to introduce new things and that's been a little tricky. She LOVED mac & cheese which now she can't have unless I make it with soy cheese. A typical breakfast for her is soy yogurt with toast or waffles. Lunch is usually some sort of lunch meat or turkey hot dog with fruit and then dinner is just whatever we're having. She really likes spaghetti and this girl loves bread and carbs! She also really likes graham crackers and teddy grahams, which is her normal snack. She used to eat lots of goldfish crackers but now she can't have that because of the cheese. I need to be better about giving her veggies. She doesn't like veggies very well so I try to hide them in with other things when she eats. Sometimes she'll have butternut squash with hot dogs all mixed together. Sounds gross but she loves it!

*She's back to 2 naps a day. I'm gonna stretch the 2 naps out for as long as possible! We went to 1 nap for awhile but it just wasn't working-she was getting tired by around 10:30 or 11 and then would only sleep an hour and wouldn't take a 2nd nap. So now we do a morning nap at around 9:30 and afternoon nap around 3. She goes to bed around 7:45 and is up usually around 6:30.

*Her favorite activity right now is drawing! She also loves to go outside and just RUN! We've gone to this inflatable jump place called Monkey Joe's a few times lately and she really enjoys that. She also loves being at the Children's Museum. Her favorite shows to watch are Agent Oso, Handy Manny and Mickey Mouse Club House. Whenever I get my laptop out she runs over and says "Hot Dog!!" so I can play the Hot Dog song for her on youtube :)

*She is a total mommy's girl, although she definitely loves her daddy. She's had quite a bit of daddy time lately and I can tell she's much more attached to him than she used to be. She also is starting to recognize people more that she doesn't see very often.

*Her vocabulary grows daily and she's putting more words together (all done, all gone, i get you, let's go, etc.). she still hasn't said "I love you" and I can't wait for her to learn that one!

*She still isn't thrilled about bath time but we've seen some improvement. She's still in her infant tub. I'm thinking the issue was part fear of the water and part pain in her ears. As her ears have started getting better, her fear of baths has decreased. We're not too worried about it right now.

*I bought her a potty chair this week. I don't think she's at all ready to be potty trained but I just wanted to introduce it to her. We practiced sitting on it a few times but she just didn't get it-but she does like sitting on it!

*EAR UPDATE!! I took her to her pediatrician this week for an ear check. The chiropractor had said to get her checked after 2 weeks to make sure there was no infection and that the fluid hadn't increased. After looking in her ears, the dr. said one ear was slightly pink but nothing that she would even prescribe an antibiotic for. She said both ears still contained fluid but that was totally normaly. She said fluid can stay in their ears for up to 3 months after an ear infection. I was a little worried about how my pediatrician would react to the fact that I'd gone the natural route and not done tubes. She was actually very supportive of it! She said that as long as her hearing was fine (which it is-we had that tested) she saw no reason for tubes at this time. She said to continue what we've been doing and she would continue to check Ella's ears. She said that in May we should just schedule an appointment with the ENT to do a pressure test and make sure that everything was back to normal. So, we're continuing to just give this to God and pray that her ears will heal and not require tubes! We've seen a HUGE improvement in her disposition in the past few weeks that I can only assume is because she's starting to feel better!

Well, for anyone who's still reading this long post, thanks for reading and being interested! :) It's a joy to share our life with you!

Rachel and Tabitha's DAY OF FUN!!

Friends' reference, anyone? (Joey and Janice's DAY OF FUN! Joey: does it have to be a whole day? Janice: YES, because that's how long it takes to love me!). oh how I love Friends.

Anyways, I got to have a special day of fun with my sister Rachel last week! It was so awesome! We both randomly just said several times through out the day "I'm having so much fun!" It was really the first whole day I was without Ella ever! I was away from her overnight once for a woman's retreat, but never did she leave early in the morning (Rusty took her to his mom's) and then I just have a day of relaxation. We were blessed with awesome weather that day too so it was just perfect!

After Rusty left with Ella, I went back to bed and slept for another hour! It was great! Then Rachel and I got up and made these carrot cake pancakes that I'd seen on PW's Tasty Kitchen website. If you look at the picture of the ones on her website, they look great-the perfect consistency. These were ours. I'm not really sure where we went wrong but they were definitely not light and fluffy. They were just ok.

After breakfast, we got ready and headed out. First stop: Starbucks!

They have this new drink called Dark Cherry Mocha. Oh my, it was so good! We got it iced. If you like dark chocolate and cherry, you will love this drink!

Our next stop was JoAnns! I love that store and could spend hours looking around-it's a pretty dangerous place for me actually! I limited myself to this one purchase. I love this fabric! I got 5 yds of it I think. My initial thought was to make a tablecloth but now I keep thinking of lots of other things I want to make! I might re-cover the seats of my kitchen chairs with it...? I'm sure I'll come up with something!

After JoAnn's we went several places but I got too excited about being out and about, baby-free, and I forgot to take pics! We did go to Old Navy where I got some awesome deals and also to this cute store called Details over in the Keystone at the Crossing area.

Our next stop was the Fashion Mall! We did some looking around at Crate & Barrel and then headed to Cheesecake Factory for lunch!

Our lunch was so yummy!

After lunch, we just browsed around the Fashion Mall. Of course we made a stop at the best store there! Anthropology of course!

Rach and I trying on some super cool glasses.

It was the perfect day! Great company, great food, great shopping and great weather! Love ya Rach!

Best purchase ever!

We've been making good use of our Children's Museum Pass the past few weeks! Ella loves it there! We got to go last weekend with our good friends. This is seriously the only picture I have of Ella and her buddy Hudson where it's not a big blur. Those 2 were on the move constantly! They were so cute together. Hudson's mom Lindsay and I were laughing because as we were walking from the dinosaur exhibit, some guy stopped us and asked if they were twins! Uhm-nope! haha.


Ok-I had to include this picture. It's of Ella on the runway at the Barbie exhibit. She got ahold of my camera tonight and was pushing buttons like crazy. When I got it back from her, I found this picture-somehow Ella had added the word "Congratulations" to this picture! HA! Didn't even know my camera could do that!


I've been looking around for a flower girl dress for Ella-she's going to be the flower girl in Sarah's wedding in May. Should be interesting! So, flower girl dresses are like $60 at David's Bridal-no way am I paying that! I looked around on Craig's List and Ebay but didn't find anything. Then last week I was wandering through the kids section at Target and saw this dress with the Easter Dresses.

I think this could totally pass for a flower girl dress! And it was only $18-I can handle that :) Ella may insist on wearing the hat down the aisle too, not sure. She LOVES to wear this hat!

Now this is my best purchase ever-this little table & chairs set I got Ella! My original plan was to wait for garage sale season and get one. I looked around at goodwill but never came across one. I finally caved in and just bought one at Babies R Us with my 20% off coupon. I'm so glad I didn't wait another 2 months to buy this! To say Ella loves this would be a huge understatement. Since the moment I put it together, she's been sitting at it. Tonight she sat there and colored for over an hour! She never does one thing for that long! Money well spent!

The only sad thing is that now yet another room of my house has been overtaken by kid stuff-I guess it was bound to happen! Last week I bought Ella a kitchen set off Craig's List and I had no place to put it except our front room. So, if you come to my house, the first thing you now see when you come in the door is a lovely plastic kitchen. Oh well!

Ear update

Just thought I would write about the latest update with Ella's ears if anyone's interested!

I took Ella to the chiropractor (a christian guy who was recommended to me by a friend) on Wednesday. I felt comfortable with him the moment I met him! And Ella actually was really comfortable with him which is very unusual for her-especially lately. We talked for quite awhile about her history with ear infections, how antibiotics weren't working, and her visit with the ENT. Her ENT appt was last week and I was not impressed with the dr. at all. I left feeling flustered and confused. He, of course, recommended that she get tubes put in. That recommendation was based off the fact that she had fluid in her ears and the pressure test came back very high. Thankfully, her hearing test came back totally normal. I initially told the dr. I'd go ahead and schedule the tubes appt. But after watching the video and talking to the nurse, I started feeling very uneasy. I said I'd like to think about it before making the final decision. I did ask the ENT dr. about chiropractic treatment for ear infections. He was immediately very defensive and made me feel like an idiot for even asking about it!

So...anyways, back to the chiropractor appt. The reason I went in the first place was just so that I would know I'd researched every option before letting them poke holes in my baby's ears! Dr. Zimmer (the chiropractor), felt Ella's neck to make sure nothing was "locked" that was preventing the fluid from draining. Her neck was fine. Now-I didn't quite understand everything he told me but it went something like this. Her first ear infection was a result of switching her from breastfeeding to regular milk. I'd already concluded this myself about 6 weeks ago. I'd seen a direct correlation between dairy and her ears getting infected. She was on dairy for most of the time that she had her ear infections because I just didn't realize that was the problem. Switching her to soy got rid of the ear infection but the fluid in her ears were still there. According to Dr. Zimmer, the number of antibiotics she was on (5 or 6, I forget) contributed to the fluid in her ears because (this is where it gets fuzzy for me) her immune and digestive systems were harmed from all the anitbiotics. He explained several times how the immune system being down caused the fluid but I just wasn't getting it. But I trust him on that. The fluid in the ears causes the pressure. Once the fluid leaves, the pressure leaves also. His recommendation is to hit her hard with probiotics and immune boosters. I have a regimen to follow for the next 2 weeks. He said after 2 weeks to take her to my pediatrician for them to check the fluid in her ears. He thinks it will be either gone or greatly reduced. He said to then just periodically schedule ear checks to make sure that fluid is gone. She also needs to be taken off all dairy. There is a chance that she will still need tubes. But he said that this has proven to be very successful and he's done this with lots of kids, including his own.

So, if you're still reading...sorry that was long and boring! But, hopefully it might be a help to someone else whose child is struggling with ear infections! I'm definitely not saying tubes are wrong to get, but for us, this was just what I felt was best for Ella.

I'll keep everyone posted on whether or not this works! Oh, and the kicker was that Dr. Zimmer didn't even end up charging us for our appt. which was so nice!

Bubbles!

This is the view I have most of the day so I thought I would just share that with you :) Ella LOVES to be held right now. I don't mind holding her but I'd really like her to be able to play on her own also. And she wants to be held at the most inconvenient times of course, like when I'm trying to make dinner! :)

I don't have a lot to post about really, just thought I'd put up a few pictures from the past week. I love the expression on Ella's face in this picture.

We're both actually looking at the camera!

I found her sunglasses in her diaper bag this week and now she likes to wear them a lot. Its so cute!

I'm going to give a video another try. I've posted several recently that look like they are fine but then when you try to view them on my blog, they are not able to be viewed. I've noticed this on some other blogs also so it must be an issue with blogger. I really hope this video works, it's so funny! I'm trying to get Ella to play with bubbles but she's just not having it. She hates getting her hands messy!

30 years of memories

Today I turn the big 3-0. Yep....the birthday I've been dreading for the past several years is finally HERE. But, thanks to a wonderful husband, great sisters and great friends, it's really been a great day so far! And...I started praying about a week ago that I'd have a good attitude today and I think that has helped a lot! So, I was trying to decide what 30 things to post for my 30th birthday. I decided to post 30 memories. I tried to mainly list happy memories but there are a few not so happy ones in there! These were just off the top of my head-there are so many more that I could list that I just didn't put on there. And I noticed that most of the ones that popped into my head were recent ones, so I tried to go back a little too. Ok, enough! I'll just list them now! :) oh, one more thing-these are in no particular order.
30 memories I have from the past 30 years
1. My first date with Rusty
2. Rusty proposing
3. My wedding day
4. The first 6 months of living in Indy-cried pretty much every day!
5. Rusty's horrible sunburn on our honeymoon
6. The day I found out that I had to have surgery if I ever wanted to get pregnant
7. The moment I found out I was pregnant
8. Laura's taking me to the hospital-and her reaction when I told her I was being admitted
9. The moment Ella was born
10. The first time Ella smiled at me
11. Going to Europe with Rusty on the best vacation ever!
12. Realizing God's perfect plan when I got hired at my current job a week after being fired from a job I hated.
13. Watching Pride & Prejudice with my sisters all night (hellooo Mr. Darcy)
14. Camping with my grandparents in their pop-up camper
15. Totalling Rusty's car in college
16. Meeting Lissa in IT class in middle school
17. Going to England after sr. year of HS
18. Shopping for my wedding dress
19. Marching Band
20. Sarah telling us she was engaged
21. Grocery shopping with Rachel (when we found the graham cracker crust)
22. Getting "outback full" with Rusty
23. the "cockroach incident" with Lissa
24. Doing summer CEF with Michelle and Amanda
25. My marsh memories...too many to name!
26. When my friends threw me a surprise party when I moved from Lafayette to Indy
27. Driving in a blizzard from Lafayette to Indy for Christmas the first year Rusty and I were married
28. When it took me 5 hours to get home from work (normally a 45 min drive) because of all the snow
29. Saying goodbye to Anya
30. Signing papers when we bought our house

Through the ups and downs, of one thing I'm certain-God's grace is abundent and sufficient! I'm truly blessed!

Our day at the museum

Since winter seems to be dragging on forEVER, we've (I've) been trying to come up with things to do to get us out of the house. I was always one of those people who said I'd never use the TV as a babysitter or let my kids really watch TV. Hmm. Well that all changed about 2 months ago. I'd exhaust all my creative and fun ideas of how to entertain Ella by about 10am. So now our routine has turned into-Ella up at 6am...I try to stretch it to at least 6:15 but by that time she's usually screaming...we head downstairs to get her milk and on comes the TV. I've memorized the line up. I wake up with the Handy Manny (or Imagination Movers) theme song in my head. Normally the TV is on until about 8 and then we head upstairs to play. I try to keep the TV off until about 2 or 3 when she gets up from her nap and I let her watch 1 On Demand show. Then by dinner time the TV comes back on so that I can get dinner started. Ella is just not a great self-entertainer. I try to just let her have alone play time but she usually doesn't go for it...so that means I'm trying to entertain her for about 11 waking hours. That's a lot! I totally run out of things to do with her so I'm sad to say the TV is on more than I'd like. This winter has made me want to seriously consider moving somewhere tropic. Between Ella being sick for all but about a week of winter, it being too frigid to leave the house, and having all my friend's kids be sick too, we've been going a little stir crazy! It's weird, but sometimes the weekends are worse than week days. Even though Rusty is home, I feel even more stir crazy than usual! I don't have people to get together with on the weekends. Rusty has been out and about all week at work so he wants to just be home and relax, while I'm itching to get out of the house! So Saturday we decided to hit the childrens museum. Ella had been once when she was about 9 months old and wasn't too impressed. I thought she'd like it more this time but wasn't sure what to expect really.

It was a hit! She loved it!!

So the carousel was actually the last thing we did but I uploaded my pics out of order. I think we'll do this first next time. Ella was so wiped by this point that she was pretty out of it the whole time!

As soon as we got to the museum and put Ella down so she could walk, I knew it was a hit. Ella LOVES just being able to run free right now. She's at the point where she rarely falls when she walks and she can run pretty well too. Luckily, it wasn't busy at all when we went so we felt ok letting her walk. We spent the majority of the time in the 5 and under area called Playscape. I was super impressed with it! There were tons of different activity stations but really, Ella would probably have been happy with just one of them! We had to drag her away from each one to show her the next and each time, she was more and more excited.

If you know what Rusty does for a living, you'll guess how proud he was when she did this :) I just had to laugh. Rusty's a civil engineer and is actually one of those people that likes what he does-so, he's pretty into street design and street sign placement and all that. Ella immediately went to this one and started moving the street signs, it was so funny!

Ok-so reverse the order of these next 2 pics! Ella loved the slide :)

Play kitchen-Ella loved feeding the babies and making us tasty treats.

This was just a tumbling area for kids 2 and under. She was a little uncertain of this one at first but ended up really liking it!

So, we'll most definitely be going back to the museum. A lot. We ended up just buying a year pass because I can see us going at least montly if not more.

I found out on Friday of last week that Ella has another ear infection. I was so sad and frustrated. She's basically had an ear infection since November 1st. It would clear up a little for a day or 2, even up to a week, but just would come back. She is on antibiotic but I'm also researching the link between dairy and ear infections. Anyone that has info on that, let me know! That one week that her ear infection cleared up-she was a different child! Days are just so rough with her most of the time because she's in pain! I don't think it's horrible pain but just enough that it makes her aggitated very easily plus it messes with her sleep. We're not ruling out tubes but I'd like to try all alternatives before going that route. I've heard great things about them but I've also heard enough bad stuff that I'd like to keep that as my last resort.

Sorry this was a long and kinda boring post! Summary: I'm so over winter. We watch too much TV. I like to get out of the house. I love the childrens museum. I hate ear infections.

oh ella

I feel like I just posted yesterday but it's been a couple of weeks I think! The past few weeks have just been a blur. I had Lasik done on my eyes almost 2 weeks ago. I'm so glad I did it! So far my vision isn't quite where I want it to be and my eyes get dry through out the day, especially at night. But when it's all said and done, I know my vision and eyes will be where they need to be! I still wake up and reach for my glasses, keep forgetting I don't need them anymore! It's been especially nice in the middle of the night if I need to go comfort Ella. She's been waking up off and on the past few weeks. I'm not sure if it's a bad dream or what. She'll just wake up crying really hard. I'll go in and pick her up and rock her and she goes right back to sleep. Last night she didn't wake up so maybe we've gotten through this phase!

Today was Ella's first class of her new swim "lessons"! She took a swim class at the Y when she was 6 months old but I wanted to get her in a class now that she's older. I really want her to like the water and not be afraid of it. I especially thought now would be a good time since she's started acting afraid at bath time. I had no clue how she would act when we got in the pool. It was pretty much what I had expected. As soon as we got in the pool, she freaked out and started crying. It took her a good 20 minutes before she really seemed to start enjoying the water. But every time we would move to a new activity, it would take a few minutes for her to not be scared. I really want to raise her to be someone who enjoys trying new things! But, there's only so much I can do I guess. One thing that I decided to hold off on was putting her under water. I didn't realize that would be part of this class. I think it caught all the moms off guard! The instructor just brought a hoola-hoop out and said we'd be ducking them under water to get from outside the ring to inside. I was the only mom who didn't do it. I think maybe next week we'll try it if Ella seems to like the water in general more. I really didn't see the benefits of sticking her head under water when she was already pretty upset. Anyone have any advice about this?

Well here are a few pics of Ella in her new swim suit and new flip flops. She looked so cute!

Here are a few more pics from the past few weeks. This one was taken last Sunday. You can't see the whole outfit but she was sporting her Colts cheerleader dress...sadly, it did not help :(

And...our 2nd attempt at getting her out in the snow went better than the first time. She really liked just walking on the road and kicking the snow. We did try to pull her in her sled but she wanted nothing to do with it!

Well, Ella's napping so I better go be productive. She's pretty much down to 1 nap a day so my "me" time is pretty much gone. I need to take advantage of it while I have it!! Maybe go do a 30 day shred workout?? I really should! I'm trying to lose 10 lbs by my sister's wedding!

Update

This is video 1 of 2. I know I've posted videos of her reading before but it just cracks me up!! She's showing some of her repeating skills here :)

Well I already posted this on FB but we took Ella to the dr. yesterday and her ear infection is GONE!! I'm convinced it was the natural treatments and not that antibiotic!! But the bad news is that now she has either strep for some sort of virus! She woke up yesterday morning at 4:30. At first I thought it was because I'd put her to bed so early the night before (6:30!), and she woke up happy. It was actually pretty funny. Rusty and I woke up to her saying "mama! mama? mama? where's mama?....." over and over for like 5 minutes. Finally after I guess she decided I wasn't coming, she started with "daddy? dada? where's daddy?" for about 5 minutes. Then I finallly went in there to see what was up. When she wakes up all happy and talking like that, I just KNOW she isn't going back to sleep. But when I went in there, I kissed her forehead and it was burning up! Sure enough she had a fever of 100.8, poor thing! When we got to the dr., she checked Ella's throat and said it looked pretty nasty. My dr. sounded pretty certain it was strep, but the test came back negative. She said though that a strep test can come back negative in the first 24 hours when it's actually positive. GREAT. She still has a fever and has been pretty miserable all morning, just laying on me.

Here's the 2nd video...more of the same but still pretty funny! I can't wait until she starts actually talking in sentences, I think she's gonna have a lot to say!

PS I think this will be my new blog look for awhile, I know I keep changing it!!

How to...

I came across this youtube video and it has changed my life! Ok, not really. It's not like I fold 100 fitted sheets a week or anything, but still. I figured I'm almost 30 (yikes) and I should probably know how to properly fold a fitted sheet!

www.domesticadventure.com/2009/12/how-to-fold-a-fitted-sheet-101/
(how do i get the actual video to show up on my blog, does anyone know? i tried but couldn't figure it out so this is the link to it)

I'm very excited because right now it's 7:45, Ella's sound asleep, my house is clean and I have nothing pressing to do! Yeah! This hardly every happens. Usually when it does happen I canNOT let myself relax and I end up mopping the kitchen floor or clipping coupons or something ridiculous like that. I just have a really hard time relaxing! I'll probably spend the rest of the time trying to decide how exactly I want to relax and by the time I decide, it'll be time to go to bed. I think there may be something wrong with me.

So, I think Ella may finally be over her ear infection! I don't want to jinx it so I won't say it out loud, I'll just type it. Wednesday of last week she was on day 6 of her 4th antibiotic and she was showing no signs of improvement. Desperate, I started researching anything and everything I could find relating to ear infections. By God's grace I came upon a blog of a new friend and she had a section on ear infections! That led me to find a little vitamin shop and get some garlic ear oil. There was a nutritionist there who also helped me find some probiotics with immune boosters. She also suggested that I switch ella to soy milk for awhile until the ear infection was gone. Within about 24 hours Ella seemed to perk up and started sleeping about 13 hours at night. Thursday we go to the doctor to get her ear checked out. I'm just praying they are better! Regardless of what happens with her ears, it just felt good to finally take charge of Ella's health and stop being at the mercy of the 5 minutes the doctor gives me every 2 weeks.

Saturday Ella started getting a little fussy again, this time it seemed to be focused in her mouth. Over and over she kept crying and slapping her jaw line towards the back. I worked up the nerve to stick my finger in her mouth and sure enough her gums were pretty swollen in the back-seems like her 2 year molars are coming in! I know it's a little early but she's always been a little advanced in the teething area.

Ok, well I'm gonna go start relaxing!

I bundled Ella up today to go play in the snow. I just wanted to take her out for a few minutes. I got her a sled at a garage sale over the summer and I thought she'd really like it!

Or not. I was so bummed! Hopefully she'll like it more eventually. This girl is NOT an outdoor girl! Oh well. Too bad it took like half an hour to get her and I both bundled up just to have to go right back inside. I did pull her around our patio and then carried her into our front yard, and then let her walk around the driveway. She screamed the whole time.

Ella's 15 month appointment was yesterday. It did not go so well. She was great in the waiting area, happily playing with toys, but as soon as the nurse came out to call us back, she started screaming and pretty much did that the entire time we were there. It was great! I'm not sure if this is typical or just my pediatrician, but we always get called back right on time (within a few minutes). We see the nurse, get measurments, etc., and then she says "the doctor will be in shortly!". Usually from that point we have to wait about 30 minutes for our doctor to actually come in the room. Of course Ella's already stripped down to her diaper and I can't really redress her since the doctor could come "any minute". I'd much rather just wait an extra 30 minutes in the waiting room with my daughter fully dressed, happy and playing rather than naked and crying! Finally I just put her boots on her so she could at least walk around.

So-here are her stats:

Weight 22 lbs 6 oz (40%)

Height 31 in. (62%)

Head 19.25 in. (98%) yup. she can't wear old navy tops because they won't go over her ginormous head!!

The bad news is that she still has an ear infection. Pretty sure it's the same one she's had since beginning of November, she just can't get rid of it, poor girl! So she's on her 4th antibiotic. If this doesn't work, there is one last antibiotic that is an injection that they can try. If that doesn't work we'll probably have to go the tubes route. Really hoping we won't have to go that far though!

Have you danced during lunch lately? We have!

Some videos

Yesterday was a cold snowy day so Ella and I pretty much stayed in and played all day. She's getting so fun to actually play with! I love sitting back and just watch her read a book, do a puzzle or play with her babies. I can tell she is going to have quite the imagination! I was getting bored yesterday so here are a few videos I took. The 2nd one is her saying her body parts, it's quite entertaining. I think the funniest thing is that I was watching the video this morning and Ella could hear the video from across the room. When I would ask her where something was in the video, she would do it from across the room, and then do it on the video. She's so funny!

Christmas and 15 months

I Know, I Know, bad blogger!! I've been so bad about taking pictures too. Ella's in that "I'm too busy playing and having fun to bother with silly pictures" phase. It's great. :)


Today Ella is 15 months old! I haven't been great about documenting her milestones and months. I wrote some stuff in her journal today and realized just how much she is changing and growing. I just kept writing and writing and writing! I hope one day she'll be able to read this journal I'm writing her and enjoy learning about what she was like as a baby. I guess she's officially a toddler now but I still like calling her a baby! Ella is quite a character. She loves to laugh and have fun but she's very particular about what she likes and how she likes it. She gets frustrated easily when things don't go her way. She's very vocal and loves to communicate with us. I made a list today of all the words she can say and I came up with 38 but I'm sure I missed a few. Her most favorite words right now are " no, mama, daddy, no, light (which sounds exactly the same as daddy when she says it), kitty, no, cuppy, baby and thank you". Did I mention the word "no"? Wow does she like to say that. We really try not to tell her "no" a lot but it slips out so easily! She's great at saying thank you, she says it all the time. Just recently she's started saying "please" more and more. We've been working on her saying "yes". Tonight at dinner I was looking in the fridge for what else I could give her. I said "Ella, would you like some grapes?" She got a big smile and said "Yes! Please! thank you mama, thank you!". I am serious, she said that! My sister Rachel was in the kitchen and we both heard it! We were laughing so hard. I think at that moment I would've given her pretty much anything she wanted!



One weird thing about her (I think it's weird) is that she is scared of our bath tub! She still takes a bath in her infant tub! We sit it in our tub and fill it up and then she sits in that. We've tried a few times to just sit her in the tub and she freaks out. Like shrill, neighbors can probably hear it, screaming. She's never had a bad experience with water and even took "swim lessons" at the Y so I'm not sure what's going on. Guess we'll just keep trying and hope she gets over it!



Ok, on to Christmas. We had a different Christmas this year. My sister was in TX with her fiance and my Mom couldn't come at the last minute because she was sick. We had a slight Ham fiasco (the oven is supposed to be ON when you cook a Ham...?) but overall it was a nice day spent with friends and family. Ella still doesn't really get the present thing and mainly really liked looking through the first present she opened-a Little Einstein book-and didn't want to bother with the rest of her presents. But she got lots of fun things and we haven't even had our Christmas with Rusty's side of the family.



Here's a backlog of pictures from the past few weeks...



A few pics from Christmas day. With all the craziness going on, I only took a few pictures.





Christmas morning, excited to open some presents!





Here's Ella with her new gloves from Aunt Sarah and also her new chair from Mommy and Daddy. She was so funny with these gloves. She's never worn gloves before so I put one glove on my hand to show her. Of course it was so small it only went down over my fingers. So when she put the gloves on, she would only put it on her fingers. Monkey see Monkey do!

We opened presents with Aunt Sarah a few days early...

Here's a few pics of Ella in her Christmas dress. Could NOT get her to sit still in front of the tree!

And...a few random pics from the past few weeks. I tried her tutu on last week. It still fits! She loved it, didn't want to take it off!

Trying on Daddy's Colts sweatshirt. Too bad it didn't help them tonight.

Proof that she DOES HAVE HAIR! People seriously stop me at the store and say "Oh don't worry honey, she'll get hair!" Why do people feel they need to stop and tell me that?

Here's a video from today. She was being so silly!